TopGear meets the DeltaWing

And the DeltaWing is extraordinarily efficient. It consumes less than half the fuel of an LMP2 or IndyCar, and matches the most efficient hybrids on the road in terms of power per litre of fuel burned. Useful for endurance racing. Hell, useful for any racing.

"We're showing that racing rules could move from ‘restrict, restrict, make it inefficient, slow it down' to ‘knock yourself out'," says Bowlby. "Don't try and say a racing car has to be this long, this high, this wide, you can't have anything in this box or that box. Nobody knows what the darn rules are. You have to be a lawyer to make sense of them. Fuel restriction is a technology you could run a whole championship on."

Neat idea: a race series where the only regulation is the maximum rate of fuel you could use per second. Beyond that - and a few basic safety concerns - anything goes: hybrids, turbochargers, KERS, even six-wheelers? "Exactly!" nods Bowlby. "If everyone starts going too fast, give them less fuel per second. How perfect is that? A limit on performance that drives efficiency.